About Ray Schuler

Raymond
Charles Schuler, Jr. was born in Evanston, Illinois on March 11, 1931.
He grew up in the Rogers Park district of Chicago. At the age of 14, Ray
was introduced to the game of billiards. "It caught me by the throat,"
says Ray, "and became a life-long passion."
By
his early 20s, Ray was an accomplished all-round player, averaging
over .70 billiards per inning in 3-cushion billiards and running up to
60 balls in straight pool. His interest in cuemaking grew out of his
love for the game.

Ray
was a long-time customer and friend of legendary Chicago cuemaker
Herman Rambow. Ray bought his first Rambow cue in 1949. Says Ray, "In
those days, Herman was still operating his custom shop out of the
Brunswick building at 630 South Michigan Avenue. Id saved money for a
long time to be able to afford a Rambow cue, which was the only cue for a
serious player to own, at least in the Midwest. The cue came with two
shafts and weighed 21 ounces (that seems heavy today, but back then, 21
or 22 ounces was the standard). It cost $18.75. I still have it."
When
Rambow died in 1967, a need arose for quality cue repair work in and
around Chicago.

Ray began doing repairs  tips, ferrules, refinishing,
and restoring  for friends and players in the area. Ray shifted from
repair work into cuemaking in the mid-1970s. Ray explains that
transition:
"I
was at a billiards tournament in Minneapolis and a friend of mine, a
player from Louisville, asked me to do some work on his cue. While we
were discussing the repair job and my interest in cues, he suggested
that one day I would be making cues, and that when I did, he would like
to buy the first one. Then he handed me a fifty-dollar bill as a
deposit.
"Taking
that $50 changed my life. It meant that I was committed to making a
cue. I had thought about making cues  even working out an idea for a
new type of joint  but now I had agreed to actually make one. So I went
out and bought a lathe and some other equipment, and then I got to
work. Nine frustrating, challenging, exhilarating months later, I
delivered my first cue."
The
transition from part-time to full-time cuemaking took about two years.
Ray had always had an entrepreneurial streak, and once hed made that
first cue, he knew he had a new career on his hands.

As for how he
learned to make cues, Ray says:"It was an exercise in self-teaching. I
have always felt, however, that starting from scratch as I did offered
at least one important advantage: it allowed me to avoid repeating
certain design mistakes of the past.
"I
came into cuemaking from an engineering background; I studied
pre-engineering at John Carroll University and took a degree in
engineering from the University of Detroit. I was able to draw heavily
on my engineering background to accumulate a body of information and
techniques that ultimately resulted in a cue stick with
exceptionally-good playing characteristics."
Integrity
The
keys to a good-hitting cue, according to Ray, can be summed up in one
word: integrity. "The performance and durability of a cue derive from
the integrity of its structural design and construction, and from the
choice of materials used in it," says Ray.

"Integrity is the key to
building a jointed cue that will hit and feel more like a one-piece cue.
Those three basic elements  design, materials, and construction  all
go together. Theyre interdependent."
Ray Schuler on Structural Design
"Cuemaking
is an endeavor of applied science. It requires in-depth knowledge of
the materials  woods, metals, synthetics, adhesives, finishes  as well
as skill at metal and woodworking techniques. But it also requires the
ability to apply that knowledge and those skills to a specific end:
making a functional tool, the cue.
"A
cue is a tool for striking a ball, and like any tool, it needs to be
well engineered if it is going to perform with certainty over a long
period of time. The design of the Schuler cue offers many benefits and
includes a number of innovations."

The
Schuler Joint  "The first challenge I faced as a cuemaker was to
develop a better joint. The ideal joint is natures joint, that is, no
joint at all, as in a one-piece cue. My goal in designing the Schuler
joint was to duplicate, insofar as possible, the hit, the hit
transmission, and the weight distribution of a one-piece cue. Hit
transmission is defined as the vibrations that move up the cue to the
players hand to give him feedback on each shot.
"Several
joint designs were in use when I started making cues: piloted,
flat-faced, and the all-wood joint that had long been popular in Europe
and the Orient.

The piloted, stainless steel joints were strong, but
very heavy. That extra weight in the form of a large hunk of metal in
the middle of the cue acts as an inertial stop to the dynamics of the
hit and its transmission. It also poses serious problems for properly
balancing the cue [See Weight Distribution and Balance below].
"The
few flat-faced joints that were both relatively light and designed with
wood-to-wood contact offered good hit transmission, as did the all-wood
joint. They were, however, not strong or durable enough, at least to my
mind. The all-wood design is also the most climate-sensitive joint
because the threads will always expand and contract in response to
changes in relative humidity and temperature.

"What
I wanted was a combination of a piloted and a flat-faced joint,
offering the advantages of both and the disadvantages of neither. And
after a good deal of research and development, that is what I ended up
with. The Schuler joint is piloted, but it has even more wood-to-wood
contact surface than the best flat-faced joints. The piloted design
assures structural integrity and durability, while the wood-to-wood
contact optimizes hit transmission.
"The
Schuler joint is also very lightweight, thanks in part to using
aircraft aluminum for the shaft insert and drilling out the brass joint
pin. A lightweight joint enhances hit transmission while contributing
importantly to the balance of the cue.

"The
Schuler joint was the first interference fit joint in a cue.
Interference fit means that the pilot on the shaft fits into the
corresponding cavity in the butt tightly enough to create friction, or
interference, between the two components. This ensures that the cue will
never loosen during play. An interference fit joint is harder to build
because of the tight tolerances required, but the benefits in terms of
strength, performance, and durability are well worth the extra work.
"Aesthetically,
the Schuler joint affords the ability to use any decorative material at
the joint  ivory, buckhorn, exotic wood, brass, stainless steel,
plastic, et cetera  without affecting the performance or balance of the
cue. The work the joint does takes place internally, so the material
used for the outside sleeve of the joint coupling is essentially a
cosmetic consideration.

"When
a stainless steel or brass joint 'look' is desired, my design allows
the outside metal sleeve to be quite thin. Thus we are able to provide
the look that many players prefer, without the penalties of extra weight
and poor hit transmission that are typical of metal-jointed cues."
Weight
Distribution and Balance  "The entire Schuler joint adds at most only
13 grams to the weight of the cue. And because Ive never used a weight
bolt in the butt, the weight of the cue is distributed along its entire
length. This contributes significantly to the balance of the cue. A
well-balanced cue will feel lighter in the players hands than it really
is. It will also feel and perform more like a one-piece cue."

Ray Schuler on Design Innovations
The
Schuler Joint  "The Schuler joint  over 25 years after its
introduction  remains unique in the cuemaking industry. My cues are
best known for this unique joint (it is so different from other
designs), but one must remember that it takes more than a superior joint
to make a superior cue. The joint is just one design element of the
Schuler cue. It did, however, lead to several other innovations and
benefits, including interchangeable shafts and a choice of standard
shaft tapers."
Interchangeable
Shafts  "I was the first cuemaker to offer interchangeable shafts on
cues.

Every Schuler shaft has always fit every
Schuler
butt. This allows players to order a new shaft at any time without
having to relinquish the butt of the cue. Only in recent years have a
few other cuemakers begun to follow my lead on interchangeable shafts,
an advantage that I have been offering my customers for over a quarter
of a century."
A
Choice of Standard Shaft Tapers  "I was also the first cuemaker to
offer players a choice of standard shaft tapers. Most cuemakers offer a
choice of tip diameters, but very few, if any, offer a variety of
standard shaft tapers.

Other
Innovations  "I was the first cuemaker, or one of the first, to use
unbreakable Delrin® for butt caps. This fits with my philosophy that the
cue should have all the integrity you can put into it. It should last
for as long as you take care of it.
"There
are a number of other innovations that are available in the Schuler cue
and nowhere else  such as the way the forewrap is internally joined to
the gripping area of the cue  but I consider these trade secrets.
Suffice it to say that every modification made to the design of the
Schuler cue over the years, and there have been many, was introduced to
improve either the performance or the durability of the cue."